Interview with the Real Old Guy
by Trace1
Summary: Methos gives his outlook on life with his usual witty sarcasm.


//Where do I take this pain of mine?   
I run but it stays right by my side,   
So tear me open and pour me out,   
There's things inside that scream and shout,   
And the pain still hates me,   
So hold me,   
until it sleeps.//   
  
  
Why everyone who knows who I am, or should I say, who I *really* am, expects me to impart some kind of special wisdom is beyond me.   
  
  
So I've lived for five thousand years. So what? I don't have the secret of the universe, and I wasn't aware I was supposed to be looking for it. Frankly, I don't give a damn why Immortals exist in the first place, or why the Game exists, or *why* anything else.   
  
  
All these youngsters running about thinking they know everything, that their concept of right and wrong is the correct one, makes me want to heave.   
  
  
When I was five hundred, I thought I knew everything. At one thousand, I realized I didn't know a damn thing. At five thousand...well, let's just say I'm hoping I'll learn something before I die.   
  
  
Oh, yes. Now to tackle the subject of death. Really, you'd think people would come up with something more...imaginative to ask me about. They assume because I'm so old, I've figured out where we go when we die.   
  
  
Then, of course, I have to point out that since I'm very much alive, and planning to stay that way, it's a bit impossible for me to know what happens after death, now isn't it?   
  
  
Listen, children, I don't *know* if there's a God. Personally, I think if He exists, he's laughing his ass off at this cosmic puppet-show we call Life. Either that, or he lost interest long ago.   
  
  
Take your bloody pick, but quit harping on it. And stop asking *me*, for crying out loud. Do you really think that someone who rode with the Horsemen, who was called Death himself,   
is going to be privy to that kind of information? Get real.   
  
  
It just gets more and more amusing to have young Immortals who've found out about my existence come looking for me to answer all of their questions.   
  
  
They expect me to be some sort of wise-man, or a prophet, or something. I suppose it's not necessary to tell you how anticlimactic it really is to find out that *I'm* the oldest Immortal.   
  
  
It's almost entertaining to see the look of shock, then disappointment on their faces. What exactly *do* they expect to see? Should I learn how to levitate myself or something?   
  
  
Of course, after meeting me, a few of the young ones have thought it'd be funny to try to take my head, apparently thinking I was holding out on them with the answers to all the questions they asked.   
  
  
Such a waste of potential. Killing the young ones really holds little pleasure for me. Killing in general has grown stale over the millennia. Guess I filled my quota a few thousand years ago.   
  
  
Quickenings have lost their lure for me as well. I don't fight unless I can't help it. Funny, how no one has thought to ask about *that*. MacLeod just assumes that I've hidden from the Game so no one would come looking for me. He's got potential, that one, but he's still missing the point.   
  
  
I thought he might get it after the Dark Quickening he went through, but it managed to escape him, even then. Ah, the follies of youth.   
  
  
//Just like a curse,   
just like a stray,   
You feed it once and now it stays,   
Now it stays!   
So tear me open but beware,   
There's things inside without a care,   
And the dirt still stains me,   
So wash me until I'm clean,   
It grips you so hold me,   
It stains you so hold me,   
It hates you so hold me,   
It holds you so hold me,   
Until it sleeps.//   
  
  
The truth is, I *hate* Quickenings. So you gain your opponent's power, their strength, their skill...So what?   
  
  
It gives you an edge against other, older, maybe more experienced, foes. Once again, so what?   
  
  
I understand completely not wanting to die. After five millennia, I'm still not through with life. I'll be damned if I lay down my sword.   
  
  
But I'd much rather use it to defend myself and escape certain death, than run around chopping off people's head for their power, their knowledge, or the rush. Whatever it is that motivates you people.   
  
  
Someone forgot to mention that along with taking someone's power and whatnot, you take their essence, their thoughts, their...soul, for lack of a better term.   
  
  
Why some Immortals go out of their way to aquire multiple personality disorder, I can't fathom.   
  
  
It gives me the creeps, personally. It's bad enough that I'm not always sure that my thoughts are my own, without adding to it. I don't enjoy having other people rattling around in my head.   
  
  
//So tell me why you've chosen me,   
Don't want your breath,   
Don't want your greed,   
Don't want it,   
Now tear me open make you gone,   
No more can you hurt anyone,   
And the fear still shakes me,   
So hold me, until it sleeps//   
  
  
Of course, there are a few of us out there who fight for whatever it is they believe in. Fighting the good fight, and all that.   
  
  
MacLeod's one of them. Battling the forces of evil, making the world safe for democracy, and all that.   
  
  
I know MacLeod's got his own sense of what's right and wrong, good and evil, honorable and dishonorable. I'm not trying to knock it.   
  
  
I just see things from a different perspective than he does, a little less biased, maybe. Or maybe not. Who knows?   
  
  
When I first met him, he practically rattled off a list of things he'd fight for. Love. His life. Vengeance.   
  
  
I don't think he's realized it yet, but his list has been getting longer and longer lately.   
  
  
How long before he loses his honorable Scottish Highland veneer and begins headhunting with the rest of them?   
  
  
Maybe Joe's right, and I am just a cynical old man. But I've seen it before, and I believe I'm seeing it now. And I wonder how long it will be before there's nothing left of my friend but his name, and his katana.   
  
  
I've considered calling his kinsman, Connor, but never actually got around to it. For the life of me, I couldn't think of what to tell him.   
  
  
Somehow I think 'Hey, Connor, you don't know me from Adam, but I think your student Duncan is losing his marbles' is going to cut it.   
  
  
And even if Connor MacLeod took me seriously, Duncan has to want help from either of us or it's pointless.   
  
  
There's also the possibility that the elder MacLeod might think I actually mean his student harm, and having a brassed off Highlander after my head really isn't my idea of a swell time.   
  
  
So...what am I to do but sit around, putting as many beers back as I can before five in the evening, and do what I'm best at-watching.   
  
  
I'll keep an eye on Duncan MacLeod and watch him slip further and further beyond my reach.   
  
  
//It holds you, holds you,   
holds you until it sleeps,   
Don't want it want it,   
want it,   
want it,   
want it, no,   
So tear me open but beware,   
There's things inside without a care,   
And the dirt still stains me,   
So wash me till I'm clean,   
Now tear me open make you gone,   
No longer will you hurt anyone,   
And the hate still shapes me,   
So hold me until it sleeps//   
  
  
Maybe in another five thousand years I'll be able to look back on everything with clarity and actually *know* the answers to the questions everyone asks.   
  
  
Maybe whoever wants to live the most will be the One.   
  
  
It might be me, but I doubt it.   
  
  
In fact, I'd lay odds that no one I've even *heard* of will be the One. Kind of depressing, actually.   
  
  
But who wants to be the last of their species, anyway? No one that I've run across in the last five millennia, human, Immortal, or otherwise.   
  
  
So, when the next youngster walks in here, demanding to know all the whys and wherefores, I'll contrive some blatantly false but imaginative story about where Immortals and the Game came from. If the person who asks is stupid enough, they may even believe me.   
  
  
Telling them the truth, that I don't know, certainly hasn't worked.   
  
  
Besides, Joe and I have a standing bet on whether or not I can actually get someone to believe a cock-eyed story like that. Lord knows I've told *him* enough tall tales.   
  
  
Anyway, it's my bar tab that's at stake here. I lose this bet, and I may actually have to pay it.   
  
  
Can't have that, now can we?   
  
  
-Fin   
  
  
*Feedback...please. I don't know where the hell this story came from, but it'd be nice to know what you guys think about it. hehe...my mind scares me sometimes. 


End file.
